"I can't believe you've never done a splatfest before Quinn! You've been in the coty for a while, and they're like, the thing, you know?" Callie tried her best to put her hand on his shoulder, but she winced and backed off when her muscles screamed in protest. "Plus, with your battling skills, I figured you'd be all over them."

"They weren't really a thing for me at all until I moved here, and after that I had something bigger that needed my attention." Quinn shrugged as he eyed the weary idols. "Besides, I didn't really have a reason to play in splatfests. They don't pay more, and really they're just too crowded."

"You fight in splatfests for the experience! Even Marie and I joined in a bunch of em before we made it big."

"The themes used to be awful." Marie explained. "Seriously, who in their right mind would care even slightly about 'backpack vs bookbag' like, what?"

Quinn gave her a flat look. "I guess the theme doesn't really matter, more it seems like it's just an excuse for the city to throw a massive party every month."

"Pretty much."

A buzzing from Callie's phone drew everyone's attention. "That's the juice up alarm, you know what that means!"

Quinn jumped to his feet before either idol could even twitch. "I got it, they're just in the fridge back here, right?"

"Yeah." Marie relaxed back into the recliner with a wave of her hand.

Callie wanted to say something about Quinn's determination to help, but the ache in her muscles was enough to keep her quiet this time. It was an endearing trait on the surface, but she knew he was still trying to 'pay them back' for everything. Just this once, though, she could let it slide; she deserved a tiny bit of pampering to balance all the work that a splatfest took.

"Here you go," he said as he handed Marie a cup of coffee, "and here you go."

Callie took the can of Kraken Energy from his hand, cracked it open, and started chugging like she hadn't drank anything in hours. Because she hadn't.

On the couch beside her, Quinn opened a bottle of water, and joined the unspoken toast. He brought the bottle to his lips, but paused and made a disgusted face. "Gah, I can smell the chemicals from here, I don't understand how you drink those things."

"Oh, it's not that bad, don't be a baby. Everything is chemicals!" Callie took another drink while giving him a cocky wiggle of her eyebrows. Truthfully, she didn't really like the drink, but the taste was good enough, and the results of downing a case of them couldn't be ignored.

"No, Cal, he's got a point." Marie good-naturedly droned. "There's a difference between what nature intended and the mistakes that were made in a lab."

"If nature didn't intend for Kraken to be made, then why do the ingredients mix together so well?"

"Evil. Malice. Dark and twisted science." Marie sat back, swirling her coffee cup in thought. "That stuff was made to knock of rust, Cal."

"And there's not a spec of rust inside me!" Callie preened, framing her face with her hands for a moment. "And you want to talk about natural? Your death brew of coffee there would kill any plant you spilled it on!"

"It's not that bad—"

"Instant death. It'll shrivel up into the size of my finger and turn brown. A little skull and cross bones cloud would float up from it." Callie punctuated her sentence by chugging the other half of her drink.

"I think you're both insane." Quinn added with a roll of his eyes. "Water's good enough for everything, no alien chemicals or cartoon poison necessary."

"You've clearly not spent the last seven hours on a stage, singing and dancing at full tilt." Marie glared at him over her the top of her cup.

"No, and I think I'm the smartest one here because of it."

"Oh psh." Callie waved her hand as she lowered her can. "The good things are worth the effort of doing this once a month."

Quinn squinted at them for a moment, like he was trying to figure something out. "Being Agents is a break for you guys, isn't it?"

That was enough to make both idols laugh.

"Haha... ow.." Marie prodded her side, but her smile didn't falter. "Usually, yeah, though it has its moments." She paused long enough to glance at the small clock on the counter, before sighing. "Speaking of moments, we've got to go back to makeup in a few. Before that though..." She wrestled through the folds of her chair, until she pulled out a small bag of coins and tossed it to Quinn."

He caught it, and gave her a curious look.

"Since this is your first splatfest, we wanted it to be a good one." Callie explained. "So we got you a little bundle of G so you can go out on the town and have some fun."

"And before you try to argue—" Marie gave him a look that made him close his mouth. "—we know what you're going to say. The answer is no, we're not taking it back. You've got the hard part in this upcoming fiasco, you deserve to take it easy before then."

"Half, then." Quinn argued.

"W— no! Take the cash! You're 15! Go be stupid in the city wide party!"

Callie couldn't help but smirk a little bit as he sputtered. They had him cornered, he couldn't fight back without sounding like a whiny 15 year old. "Seriously. I hate talking like this, but that little bit of G is nothing to us, and it gives you a fun night. Get whatever you want with it."

"...Anything?"

"Go crazy!" Callie shouted and threw her arms up, making both of them jump. "But do go."

Marie made a show of waving him towards the door. "You can head back to the apartment when you're done if you want. Otherwise, You know where to find us. Just show that badge we gave you if you wanna get back in here while we're on stage."

Quinn stated at the money for a second before hesitantly nodding. "Alright. I'll... be back." He awkwardly stood and tucked the money into his pocket before heading towards the door. "Uh, good luck."

Callie gave him the biggest smile she could as he walked out the door. A few seconds passed before both Squid Sisters breathed a sigh of relief. "I was worried he wouldn't take it."

"Tell me about it. He's smart but so damn stubborn."

Callie smirked. "I guess we're finally starting to get through to him, huh?"

Marie rolled her eyes but smiled. "I guess so. I just want to make sure he's doing ok after that one attack."

The shift in topic made Callie's face fall. "We should have stopped after that. I mean, Marie they nearly killed him, and we let him run right back into the field after downing a bottle of water. What kind of senior Agents are we?"

Marie winced. "Not very good ones." It wasn't hard to tell she was thinking about the initial meeting again. "He seemed fine... but we both know how good he is at hiding things."

"But he took the money!" Callie put as much optimism into her voice as she could. "So hopefully he'll have his fun tonight, and recover some, and then we can be there to talk him through the rest!"

"I suppose so." Marie took another sip of her coffee. "He really is something else, isn't he? I don't think there's a single other kid in the city who would say no to someone handing them forty thousand G."

"It's kinda cute though! He's so modest."

"Yeah, I thought that was the habit we were trying to break."

"Oh, true." Callie forced herself off of the couch with a grunt, and walked to the back of the room to get an additional two cans of Kraken Energy. "What do you think he'll spend the money on then?"

"Probably not any weapons, and definitely not any of the street attractions. It'll be something practical for sure. Probably food, and maybe a new weapon."

Callie slapped her forehead as she sat back down. "Oh we're so dumb. We should have put some constraints on what he could buy. He's gonna go buy a shipping truck's worth of granola now."

"Cod, please no. We gotta ban him from the stuff or something, have you seen the little cluster of boxes he stuck in the bottom of out pantry?"

"He doesn't even like the stuff! I can see it in his eyes. Practical or not, I can't eat more than two of the things in a week, and he shouldn't either." Callie paused for a moment, her thoughts redirecting. "Have we taken him to anywhere but fast food places?"

"Not yet. I think he'd explode if we tried to feed him something worth more than 500 G."

"That's true... maybe he'll go tonight?"

"Pff. No."

That got a chuckle out of Callie. "Yeah, fair. I hope the splatfest energy gets to him. You see the way he perks up around us, I'm sure he'll get swept up in the crowds.

Marie snorted. "What, you think he's gonna raid a candy store or something?"

"Oh my cod I hope so! He needs to find the whimsy in life, and artificial, sugar induced whimsy absolutely counts." And to prove her statement, Callie opened another can of Kraken, and chugged the entire thing in one go.